CME DRAFT Paper on Strategic Government Procurement

January 24th, 2012

CME DRAFT Paper on Strategic Government Procurement

Dear Members of the Canadian Manufacturing Coalition (CMC),
Please find enclosed a draft paper of a strategic government procurements paper that I wrote recently in response to a number of our members’ request. Some of you might be interested in discussing in more details.
In summary, the paper calls for all levels of government to make better use the current exemptions that Canada has negotiated in our international trade agreements (mainly WTO-GPA and NAFTA). More specifically, we ask governments to take advantage of four specific exclusions, including: 1-Use the Industrial Regional Benefits ( IRBS), currently used in National Defence, in other sectors, for instance infrastructure projects; 2)make better use of the National Security Exemption (especially in sectors like Vaccines and critical infrastructure); 3) make better use of the Small Business Set Asides and 4) adopt policies in line with the exclusion of loans and grants transferred from the federal government to other levels of government from the definition of government procurements (the same exclusion that allows the Americans for example to impose the Buy America requirements).
Finally, the paper recommends that we use these exceptions on the principle of reciprocity, as a tool to leverage our negotiation position with our trading partners. For example, we would exclude US suppliers from these policies as long as the US keeps its government procurements open, as defined under NAFTA. If for example the US was to impose Buy American requirements through the American Jobs Act or any other new fund dedicated for infrastructure, or to expand the coverage of the Buy America Act, and did not grant an exemption for Canadian suppliers, Canadian governments would have these policies in their back pockets to put some pressure on US suppliers doing business in Canadian infrastructure projects, and therefore get USTR and other decision-makers to sit down with the Canadian Government to negotiate a deal based on reciprocal access.
Once you have reviewed the paper and provided me with some comments, I would be happy to discuss it on a conference call with you. We have a number of other companies members of CME in various industry sectors interested in pushing this strategic procurement strategy forward at different levels of government. This is of course something we should discuss, especially that Minister Ambrose is expected to release a Government procurement strategy I believe with the introduction of the federal budget.
Thanks for your feedback, and I look forward to hearing back from you.
Best regards,
Martin Lavoie

 

Director of Policy/Directeur des politiques

 

Manufacturing Competitiveness and Innovation/Productivité et Innovation

 

Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters/Manufacturiers et exportateurs du Canada

 

P: 613-238-8888 ext. 2229

C: 613-406-9002

Click here for Document
CME-strategic-procurement-paper- DRAFT-ML.docx

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